Nro Ala #2
- Ino A. Kodjo
- Aug 7, 2025
- 9 min read
hey guise, how's it uh...how's it hangin'?
It's been an interesting few weeks for me, in DreamLand in my waking life. Juggling my course and new changes with my work and home life. I want to update you all, I've decided to return to work for a little bit. Infant care, this means the course will now be an evening and virtual course. Same days, but later in the evening around 7 or 8 p.m. CST or maybe we could switch to weekends. Please contact me for any questions or concerns via email and suggestions as well! My schedule is very unique and I want to accommodate others as much as I can! I'm sorry about the switch up, but I'm hoping these changes makes the course more accessible. To learn more about what this course offers follow me on instagram.com/inowearnomask or
click this link: https://www.anansisdream.com/book-online
.
..I've been observing the world and trying not to absorb it. My dreams are evidence I've not yet perfected this practice though. Mmm, in the midst of everything I am trying to remember to give myself permission to experience pleasure and joy, humanity. Even though that makes me feel guilty and selfish. Still I strive to even seek them out as friends, without feeling like a thief. This feeling is sneaky little guy man, he creeps up a lot. Since I quit my last teaching gig, I had pretty much the whole summer to just work on my practice, the course, and myself. I really have a lot of work to do when it comes to accepting joy. I've written about it here, first as a relationship to desire in my other posts, and I think more recently it's almost extremely crucial to have a healthy relationship with my fear(s). I think that's the sneaky guy, he's just scared, you know? I think oddly enough joy and pleasure are scary for me because you have to release control to experience those emotions. I'm not actually as good at that as I thought, my relationship shows me that a lot in funny ways. It's a good mirror. But! I have been opening up to new things and remembering old loves too.
I went to the library and got like four books!
Libraries were like, that toy story in Home Alone for me when I was little, I still get the same feeling. Out of this collection my favorite by far is The Annotated African American Folktales annotated with a Foreword, Introduction, and Notes by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar. I'm learning so much more about the cultural & historical significance of African American Folklore, how these stories carry traces of truth, native languages and wisdoms of our ancestors. It's been long debated whether descendants of Africa in America, still possess any African aspects in our social and cultural institutions or ways of being. It was meant to be eradicated from us completely. Ethnic cleansing and forced assimilation. So much of our African culture did survive, and is expressed in everything we do! The stories in this book survived the trans Atlantic slave trade and all subsequent colonization. I think that is so goddamn beautiful and I just want to say that...yes, it is our fight too. Your desire to bow out in silence is the trick of grief. I think a surprising amount of people believe that they are no longer African, and seeing the gravity of the suffrage in Gaza, Sudan, Haiti and other places facing genocide activate a deep, festering, unaddressed wound about the abuse we've faced here and the pieces of ourselves being on this land seems to have cost us. It is hard to sit with the truth of what this country is, your prescribed place in it and whatever emotions arise in response. "Hard" is an understatement. But, embracing some silly fodder like a story about a spider who is also a man, from way back in Ghana, could help you more than you realize. I'm introducing a new segment here called Anansi's Dream, to honor the great Spider (he is the keeper of all stories after all), celebrate our stories and keep them alive. First, we gonna listen, tell, Kwaku Anansi. One story of how he got his stories, another about the importance of family faith and trust.
Anansi's Dream
How the Sky God's Stories Came to be Known as Spider Stories. From R.S Rattray. ed. Akan-Ashanti Folktales, 1930. Read aloud by Ino Kodjo accompanied by some sounds from Andre 3000's, New Blue Sun. The file was too big to put here so follow the link to listen and read along below:
Anansi the Spider, a West African Folktale about Kwaku Anansi, who falls into trouble and each of his six sons assists in saving his life. He must decide who to reward. I can remember being in grade school and sitting on our library floor as the librarian wheeled in our little T.V so we could watch this. If I am still and focused enough, I can smell the room. And remember it almost perfectly. I still experience love in my body the same way I did then. After The Very Bad Thing, this day was one of the first things I could remember. It is my favorite memory. Thank you for letting me share it with you.
Which son of six would you give your light to?
Imeamansi
Imeamansi, is the word used to described the Igbo concept of natural magic. I wanted to extend the bug count down vibes to any and all things I admire in nature. Even though most magics, are used for practical improvement of daily life; I think it's important to honor the ogwu in everything, The enchantment. Even if it's not for us, and especially if it is. :In Igbo, "ogwu" is a word used to describe traditional remedies or charms, substances or omens that can carry protective or beneficial qualities. Do you think animals can be ogwu too? One of the other books I got at the library is, The Lives of Bats: A Natural History by DeeAnn M. Reeder. So...
#4 is Bats! I love them so much. They are really strange looking, my curiosity began there. Nose leaf bats are the ones with all the fleshy fold.
But these act sort of like megaphones for different communication and hunting signals used during echo location. They also, are mammals! Most people I've info dumped to since I got this book think they are marsupials but nope! Mammals like us! They are they only flying mammals, and yes they do have thumbs. Their wings are actually hands! They start out with small lil' hands but the fingers elongate and become webbed wings while they are in the womb. My Absolute favorite thing about them though? Chiropterologists are not able to pinpoint exactly how long Bats have been on Earth! There is about a 10 million year gap between when molecular analysis suggests bats arrived and when their fossils first appeared! Really living up to their mysterious reputation. I think Bats are a really impressive example of the way living organisms, including us can learn to develop WITH our environment. Bats have such an intricate communication and socialization habits. Its a shame the naked ear can't hear it. Their snouts take different shapes based on what will help them hunt more efficiently, and this is all due to their diverse roost environments. I consider them one of natures masters of evolution. They are a reminder to stay clear as you navigate the sometimes dark and cunning nature of the world around you. To rely on your unique traits and ancestral history to better adapt to your current environment. Bats also help with pollination and seed dispersal. So, save the bats! Even the funny lookin' ones! We need them.
#3 Number three is the tree-hopper bug. Insects have also really mastered their evolution, if you ask me. Treehoppers made this list because they exhibit a social behavior I haven't yet seen in insects.
Most insects and arachnids that I've learned about only emit pheromones to attract a mate. Female tree hoppers emit pheromones to attract other mamas to lay eggs with. They know if there are more adults there, the young have a higher likelihood of survival. I think that's so precious. I think even basic instinct can be precious. How do you preserve youth? How do you work together or emit the right energy to attract those you'd like to be in community with? Which parts of being human would you want to share the way the treehoppers share motherhood?
#2 Honey pot ants! I just think their little honey butts are so cute! :) In all seriousness though, ants of all species all pretty baller. But honey pot ants present us with yet another peculiar example of the ways insects develop ways of being that benefit the whole. Worker ants within the colony called "repletes" can use their abdomen to store foods like honey dew, nectar and water too! When food and resources are scarce, other members of the colony can stimulate the replete ants as a way to sort of "ask" for food. Repletes then regurgitate a few droplets as a time, they are living food pantries! Honey pot ants can hold an impressive amount of liquid, sometimes storing so much they can no longer move and so hang from the ceilings of their nests.
Occasionally repletes will die doing this duty, not on purpose but simply because they run out of resources. Here, for me...there is a lesson in boundaries for us humans. Feed your people, don't forget to eat too. If you were a honey pot ant, what would you store and collect for your colony?
How do you nourish yourself and the ones you love?
#1 Goes to the massive Titan Arum
I actually just think this plant is really fucking cool. A few weeks ago I was looking for something else for the Imeamansi column and googled something like "strange plants" and stumbled upon the titan. Being a necromancer I was intrigued by its nickname, Corpse Flower. A couple of weeks later I see on Instagram that there's an exhibit near me showing one. I was like oh we HAVE to go. They get up to ten feet tall!
Her name was Octavia and they definitely live up to their name! Get this, unlike other flowers that rely on pleasant aromas and bright colors to attract pollinators, the Titan Arum emits a foul odor not unlike rotting flesh to attract pollinators like flies and carrion beetles. Its reddish coloration on the inside is so these bugs mistake it for meat. That's so clever bro! This thing was HUGE and the smelly is really that bad. I think after a while you get used to it because you know where it's coming from. We unfortunately didn't get to see it bloomed, but it was still so cool to have something so synchronous to happen. I was really happy to see it in person. I did a little bit of research and found that in Italian folk magic Corpse flowers are kept round to protect new born babies. That's cute.
Titans also contain male and female flowers. So , you know... very queer. Titan Arum reminds me not to be afraid to be sensed. No matter what, I know my purpose. Follow my threads account for more fun facts about this gender bendin' Goliath @inowearnomask.
Today's Nonbinary Experience!
Not explaining!
Dear Diarrhea!
July 31, 2025
Dear Diarrhea,
I went to the Contemporary Art Museum today and saw an expansive exhibition of works titled "Like Water", by a collective of international and multigenerational artists Candice Lin, Simone Fattal, Jamal Cyrus, Beatriz Santiago Munoz, and Vivian Suter. . It made me perfectly sad. The first room, is like an altar room.
There is Candice Lin reading over a speaker, La Charada China (a home) from the perspective of a being recanting their past lives as a horse, a Chinese House who's abandoned bits were lost at sea. I kept listening and looking at all the pieces, they felt like artifacts.
I felt alone with God for the next few moments. Pieces of the house are recycled into fine wood, the boat its on shipwrecks. The wood remembers sinking down, down, down. "It remembers all of the enslaved Africans, and later the Indian and Asian workers who were dragged across the oceans in ships like the one who took me. Some of them jumped over board in suicide, some of them were thrown alive because they were too rebellious, too sick or just worth more in insurance value.
Their bodies remain in the ocean, literally. Christina Sharpe writes in her book, In the Wake, of the scientific concept of residence time, the time it takes for a body to enter and to leave the ocean. She writes, 'Human blood is salty, and sodium[...}has a residence time of 260 million year.' " So I just stood there for a minute and let God and whatever spirits inna room hold me. It's heavy to think so many of us are still down there. My old body might be down there. I remembered a dream I had in 2021 when I listened to those words. I was asleep, and woke up in my dream. I looked out the window and sort of silently charging across the sky, pink orange sky....there was a ship. It moved like it was cutting straight through water. I could see lots of African people, moaning and crying and groaning. There were some men who spoke like it hurt to fix their mouths to make any sound at all. Their mouths moved like mouths that did not know how to be mouths. "help us, save us." It was floating right for my window but I woke up before I could do anything. I think maybe i told one person about this dream. Other than that, just you guys. It still makes me sad. But, I am ready to paint it. I know it will be some powerful veneration and freedom on the otherside. I always try to remember names. I'll let yall know if I channel any.
This is our fight, man. It always has been. We all need each other, we all deserve to be free. Don't forget to follow and do something good (psssttt...click that link for Gaza, Congo, Sudan )
.
Comments